Robert Stein (1950)

Robert Stein (1972)

Robert Stein (2000s)

About Me

editor, publisher, media critic and journalism teacher,
is a former Chairman of the American Society of Magazine Editors, and author of “Media Power: Who Is Shaping Your Picture of the World?” Before the war in Iraq, he wrote in The New York Times: “I see a generation gap in the debate over going to war in Iraq. Those of us who fought in World War II know there was no instant or easy glory in being part of 'The Greatest Generation,' just as we knew in the 1990s that stock-market booms don’t last forever.
We don’t have all the answers, but we want to spare our children and grandchildren from being slaughtered by politicians with a video-game mentality."
This is not meant to extol geezer wisdom but suggest that, even in our age of 24/7 hot flashes, something can be said for perspective.
The Web is a wide space for spreading news, but it can also be a deep well of collective memory to help us understand today’s world. In olden days, tribes kept village elders around to remind them with which foot to begin the ritual dance. Start the music.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Down in the Political Pits

Democrats must be feeling like the Chilean miners except that, after being buried alive for months, there is no end in sight.

Now Obama supporters are selling raffles for a chance to meet the President backstage in Las Vegas while industry lobbyists grovel to get back into the good graces of the GOP for having cooperated on health care last year.

How bad can it get? Even worse, it seems, as the majority party goes into full triage mode to save Democratic seats once considered safe.

The coming electoral tsunami is being powered not only by Tea Party rage but a concurrent tide of despair from the other direction as, in a new poll, more than four out of ten former Obama backers say they "are either less supportive or say they no longer support him at all," citing his failure to turn the economy around.

"The excitement they once felt is gone," one of the disappointed explains, "and they are left wondering if they were sold a bag of goods."

All this sounds like the griping of patrons who bought a ticket to a highly touted movie and lost interest when the popcorn ran out.

From the perspective of one who has seen 13 presidents in adult life through an actual Depression, four bitter wars and a Cuban Missile Crisis, such consumer dissatisfaction is surreal enough to raise second thoughts about the upbringing of the Baby Boomers, cushioned from the pain and disappointment of previous generations.

It's enough to make an aged observer want to shake these "whiners" (pace Joe Biden) and tell them to stop bitching, go buy a raffle ticket and get out the vote for November 2nd.

If they stay buried alive after that, nobody is going to come and rescue them.

Update: A live-streamed town hall to rev up young voters who helped put him in the White House two years ago underscores the President's Sisyphean task now. Voicing the mantra of Hope and Change in the abstract was a far easier rallying mission than defending the complicated results.

“One of the challenges of this election is to make sure we understand that as difficult as things have been, we are moving in the right direction,” he told them. “The challenge is to make sure that once again hope overcomes fear.”

Fear is turning out to be a more formidable foe than McCain and Palin.